CAKE STOP BI CICL E T TA , SA F F RON WALDEN

A fresh, light and friendly eaterie with rider-friendly menu items and some of the finest coffee around

“Our regular for any number of day rides from Cambridge – all you want in a cycle cafe”

Peter Gray

“Nice atmosphere, coffee and cake – basically, it’s the reason we cycle to Saffron Walden!”

Joan and Geoffrey Smyth

“Perfect place to stop, whether we’re on a local pootle or a 40-mile gravel-bike circuit”

Rowan (10) and dad Andrew

Cambridge is Britain’s everyday-cycling capital, with one third of journeys being made by bike. The Guided Busway, 14 miles north west out to St Ives, with its stunning cycleway alongside, is unique in the UK and popular with families and triathletes.

Lively, stylish cafes abound, mostly full of cosmopolitan town trundlers at laptops, but there are exceptions. Cycle-themed Espresso Library (CB1 1BG) is adorned with bikes, while Grounds Cafe (CB24 6AZ) in nearby Milton Country Park (on NCN11) has just gained a bike shop. The planned cycle superhighway-like Chisholm Trail is expected to have a new cycle cafe on Newmarket Road during 2020.

But the place Cambridge’s roadies usually congregate for coffee on their flattish, villagey back lane day loops is 16 miles to the south-east, in affluent Saffron Walden (Day 3 of the 2014 Tour de France). Bicicletta (‘coffee con velo’) is where you’ll find plenty of club and leisure riders fuelling up 7/7. There’s basic bike parking and inside is a fresh, light place decorated with bikes, books and posters. T-shirts, basic parts and spares are on sale, and there’s a track pump. A good range of riderfriendly menu items includes bacon rolls, posh porridge, toasties, a light-lunch special and cakes from Honest2Goodness (try the Marmalade Sponge).

SIGNATURE DISH

Sourdough toastie – choose from 11 ingredients: £6 SHOWSTOPPER

Smashed avocado, local free-range poached eggs and local bacon on toast: £10 I’M A COFFEE SNOB, HOW’S THEIR

FLAT WHITE? Fine selection of world roasts. Saffron Walden boasts several cafes, so quality has to be high KEY STRAVA SEGMENT

Guided Busway to Swavesey, 3.06 miles, average grade 0.0 per cent, elevation gain 16ft, 89,694 attempts by 10,304 people

KOM Edmund Bradbury 6.26, 09/06/2012

QOM Catherine Robbins 7.23, 05/10/2017